In which Sid and Doris have a fab day with a generous baker, visit a Christening and see the railway that bankrupted Greece.
Maybe we should have looked harder for the small delights in Corinth but Via Michelin probably has it right. There is a good view up the road to the mountains as we leave to find the coast road for the day. #betterviewedfrombelow #thanksanna.
This really is holiday riding with the sea on the right and keep riding. In a boat we would be tacking up against the wind, but the road does not reward such an approach. Doris takes the early miles as lead-out rider.
An early stop is to talk to someone measuring something. He is a quantity surveyor planning the resurfacing of the road. His favourite role is as a Via Ferrata guide. He has lived in Toronto and New York, visited London. His mother is frail so he is here for now.
And these roads need help. At one point we are riding with three poorly buried cables – one of which has been our constant companion from Pireus to Patras, so in the end we took a picture of it as there aren’t many things that have accompanied us for three whole days. (Unusually for Sid and Doris we didn’t give it a name, we will leave that as today’s challenge for our many readers.) Greeks and Turks will run private power conduits under the road themselves, so in built up areas there are dozens of poorly filled slits across the road. Ha ha, how enterprising, through Sid’s gritted teeth.
Eventually breakfast is burned in the cyclists’ firebox and at about 11.00 we pull over at a beach restaurant. There are two old sorts playing backgammon at the back but otherwise the 100 odd cover place is empty. We head for the obvious seats by the beach. The waiter says all those seats are reserved but we could sit in a different shady spot. Sid and Doris do not take this well. We look at the menu and consider the quality of the welcome. And ride away, while not making any expressive finger gestures.
Maybe 500 metres later we see three cyclists outside a bakery. In like Flynn, gathering up chilled coffee drinks and doughnuts. The baker himself pops into the shop to give us pains au chocolat fresh from the oven. We begin to occupy a table outside and when we look round two cinnamon buns have also materialised. This man knows his baking and knows cyclists. And if you are around this coast we recommend his bakery #shamelessplug. Soon we are talking to a Dutch couple, wisely living over the bakery for the summer.
Doris spots a candidate for ‘load of the day’ and then we go cycling some more.
Vehicle of the day has no standout candidate: a 1970s Mercedes E220, a BMW E30 rally car, a Beetle and a host of baby Datsun and Toyota pick-ups. Sid thinks a little bakkie [Translation: ute – D.] would be a great way of taking bikes out to ride beyond the usual haunts.
Next up in this busy day was an Orthodox christening. We stopped to look into a new church with a graceful courtyard. Waved in by a lady church warden we find the Sunday service has been extended to include a christening. Much incantation and swinging of censers. Attention ton sac, qui brule!
The church is decorated with new mosaics. Just now it looks about half done, so maybe 30 more years to go. Just another church, in Xylocastro just another town. Candles are lit.
A reminder that in Turkey we saw lots of new mosques being built, on such a large scale that they looked like state-sponsored projects. But this is the first new church that we’ve been aware of.
We are on the old road which weaves between the sea, the new road, the old railway and the new railway. The Greek state ran up large debts supporting employment through the building of new lines, over-manning and over-payment of railway staff. The New York Times put Greek rail debts at about $13 billion in 2010; there are about 11 million Greeks so every man, woman and child owes over $1,000. (Last night a child came begging at our table, the first on this whole trip. He has a lot of work to do just to clear his bit.) Now virtually the whole rail network on the Peloponnese part of Greece, much of it newly built, has been closed down as uneconomic.
Even pains au chocolat will run out and at 60 odd kilometres Doris is empty. Again we are lucky in our stop (picture of cafe included for another #shamelessplug). Sid picks out a banana and a croissant which our hostess makes up into a warm honey smothered pud. Doris opts for ice cream. Iced coffees are full of active ingredient. Hurrah.
Coming in to Diakopto we stop to visit the station from where the cog railway sets out for Kalavryta. This is a 750mm narrow gauge line running 22 kilometres up through a steep gorge, with six kilometres so steep it requires the cog drive. The original 19th century plan was that water in the gorge could provide electricity. That part of the project was not completed (the thing was already wildly over budget and time, but #HS2 we are in no position to comment) so was steam operated (with six locomotives!) and now has a diesel-electric unit in the train. This is one of the few trains running in this part of Greece. The cog can be seen in the picture of the steam loco.
And so to our vairy large apartment. S&D’s first flat in Campden Hill Gardens was smaller than this. The Alkistis Hotel is handy for beach restaurants and has a pool side bar where to set up Blog Central. We rode 81 kilometres and wove in and out of old and new road and rail routes to record 270 metres of holiday riding climb.
Our plan is to ride to Patra on the old road to find the ferry to Bari in Italy. So this is probably our last night in Greece. It has been a larvelly holiday.
We finish with a picture of a pink car to remind you why not to buy a red car in Greece.